


The Dirty South

by myqueerwatson



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Abusive Parents, Alternate Universe - High School, Appalachia AU, Awesome Frigga (Marvel), Canon-Typical Violence, Culture-Typical Christianity, Dealing with Homophobia, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Loki/Tony Stark, Eventual Romance, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, LGBTQ Character, Loki (Marvel)-centric, Mountains, Multi, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Transphobia, Post-High School, Queer Themes, Slice of Life, Slow Burn, Southern Gothic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-09
Updated: 2018-09-30
Packaged: 2019-07-10 09:43:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15946778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myqueerwatson/pseuds/myqueerwatson
Summary: Growing up in the hills around the coal mines and deep forest, everyone keeps secrets like the silence that settles over the winter. That stillness is foreign to Tony Stark, but secrets like how he knows just how to pick the lock on his father's liquor cabinet, among others, he has in spades. Bruce spends his time at the library, the steam-bleached carpet and harsh lighting a welcome relief from the harshness in his home. Learning to move like a spy, Natasha first moves to avoid the notice of her family. The sandy-haired boy listlessly skateboards to the middle of no where, bow case strapped to his back. There's more. The small dusty town seems perpetually caught in sunset or dawn, alternating between scrutiny in bright daylight and the hazy buzz of dying streetlights sometime after midnight. Somewhere beyond the peaks and gullies, there's another world, another place where they can become who they're meant to be. They just have to get there first. Avengers in Appalachia AU.





	1. Creatures of Snow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _Her dirty paws and furry coat_  
>  _She ran down the forest slopes_  
>  _The forest of talking trees_  
>  _They used to sing about the birds and the bees_  
>  _The bees had declared a war_  
>  _The sky wasn't big enough for them all_  
>  _The birds they got help from below_  
>  _From dirty paws and the creatures of snow_  
>  -Of Monsters and Men "Dirty Paws"

_Earlier_

His mother’s vanity held a particular fascination for him, perhaps a little more than other forbidden places only for adults. The dark cherry wood, the antique silver-backed mirror and the gleaming handles of her hairbrushes and combs seemed out of another world, another time, especially compared to the room painted all in blues he shared with his brother.

In the quiet mid afternoon, he could sit at the low bench and carefully inspect her jewelry box and the little container of loose powder. Her jewelry alone held enough captivation to keep him quiet for a long time.

His mother’s tastes ran simple and classic, which suited her own kind of regality among the other squawking ladies from the church or the other mothers he saw dropping his classmates off at preschool. A few strings of pearls of varying size, some cocktail rings, and dozens of glittering brooches to pin her shawls and scarves all under his nimble little fingers for him to inspect in the afternoon light.

Across the house, he could hear the clink of dishes in the kitchen. With his father at work and his brother at school, he could get a few blissful hours away from them when it was just him and his mother. It was nice.

With her far away, he gingerly picked up the long string of pearls. This one had a set of matching earrings, the golden posts looking threatening and strange. He watched the light glide across the pale surface of the little beads. Concentrating, he worked open the odd hook clasp and slung the rope behind his neck, working on clasping the little hook back together.

In the mirror, a curious child looked back at him. The pearls struck a brilliant contrast to his dark play clothes.

Cocking his head, a thought occurred to him: with his longish hair and big eyes, he looked an awful lot like the girls in his class. If he had on a dress, there’d really be no difference.

Necklace bouncing on his chest, he tiptoed to his mother’s closet to the side where she hung her scarves. He found one that was long and frilly and green, the kind his mother might wear around Christmas. He pulled it down and wrapped it around his shoulders and again around his waist, pulling out the pearl necklace so that it lay over the material.

There. There he was in the mirror again, standing awkwardly while holding the scarf in place so he had a shawl and a matching skirt and a beautiful string of pearls. So what if his blue jeans and white socks stuck out of the bottom?

He went back over to the vanity and slid open the top drawer where his mother kept her more intricate makeup. There he found kohl pencils, a collection of super soft brushes, and a few tubes of lipstick in different shades of pink and red.

“Sugar, I’m gonna have to stop you before you get into all that,” his mother’s voice startled him so violently he dropped his scarf. He whirled around, ready to hide but she was smiling. She came in and sat beside him on the bench, tucking a black curl behind his ear. “What do you have there, son?”

Confused, he tried, “I’m sorry!”

His mother shook her head, “Baby, nothing’s wrong. You shouldn’t take things without asking, but you didn’t hurt anything.”

“Nothing’s...wrong?”

“Let’s look at you,” she turned his chin up with her finger and smoothed his scarf around his shoulders and straightened his necklace. “There you go. Interesting outfit you’ve chosen, but it does look nice on you.”

Still not convinced he wasn’t in trouble, he just frowned at the praise.

“Now, let’s see,” she slid the makeup drawer back open, “What colors would look nice on you? Is there one you like?”

Taking a deep breath, he looked where she pointed. “I don’t know,” he confessed.

His mother just smiled at him, “Let’s start with something simple,” she said as she pulled out a nice pink lipstick with little glittery specs. “Is this okay?”

He took the tube from her fingers and turned it in the light so the glitter caught, “I like it.”

“Okay,” she twisted the extender so she could work, “now hold still.”

The pink ended up not being overly noticeable, but he didn’t mind. It was the shimmer he liked.

“Do you want to try some blush?” His mother pulled another little compact out, this one with a rosy pressed powder inside. She popped it open and pulled out the downy soft brush. “Here, just a little on your cheeks to give you some color.”

He sagged into her touch, obediently closing his eyes for smudges of eyeshadow but shying away from mascara and liner.

“There you are, darling, look how pretty you are!” He felt his mother’s kiss on the crown of his head.

The child in the mirror looked like a porcelain doll: rosy cheeks, little clip-on rhinestone earrings, and a pearl necklace. He wasn’t wearing a frilly dress, but his scarf worked well enough. Fascinated, he touched his face, absorbing the subtle changes.

His mother still smiled next to him in the reflection. He caught her looking and frowned.

“What’s wrong, dear?”

“Father will be mad.”

His mother rolled her eyes, “Well, he won’t be home until after six, you can leave it on as long as you want to.”

“But…”

“What, honey?”

He turned to her with wide eyes. “Don’t tell Thor.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that the general assumption about "Dirty Paws" is that it's an allegory for WW2; however, Norse myth tells us that Loki is a shapeshifter and one of their preferred shapes is a wolf. Marvel's Loki is also a frost giant, shapeshifter and is canonically genderfluid (I got receipts, don't @ me).


	2. Tell Me Again How Love Wins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For what it's worth, I promise it won't always feel like this.
> 
> Warning for things already tagged. Nothing graphic, just the grinding, day-to-day stuff.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _Well we're a long way from the Stonewall Inn_  
>  _I'm standing on this platform, no one's stopping me to sing_  
>  _But there's a multitude of sins that can hide behind your hashtag_  
>  _Tell me again how love wins_  
>   
>  _Well there's nothing new about this rage_  
>  _It's a war that's always waged_  
>  _Like how no one bats an eye that when fifty of us die_  
>  _And it doesn't even make the Daily Mail front page_  
>   
>  _Well sometimes, it's like an uphill climb_  
>  _Yeah sometimes, it's like an uphill climb_  
>  _But I'm right by your side_  
>  _And that's what we call pride_  
>  -"Pride" by Grace Petrie, [Listen Here](https://gracepetrie.bandcamp.com/track/pride)

_Today_

High school was just as boring and awful as he’d been warned it would be. Some of his classes held his attention, particularly science, art, and history, but when your brother is the star quarterback and constantly surrounded by his entourage of admirers and teammates, it was difficult to maintain a low profile and muddle through till graduation.

Which was coming up very soon for Thor. His brother’s nonchalance about his future likely came from assurance that he could get into any school he wanted on a football scholarship, but Loki wasn’t convinced that such a scholarship would be as forthcoming as Thor imagined it to be.

Loki couldn’t worry about that now. They’d finally gotten a day to catch up on readings in class, and so he turned his attention back to a long-winded paragraph on the Civil Rights movement.

This section of U.S. history always infuriated him in ways he could name and in ways he couldn’t. Thankfully it wasn’t an election year and they weren’t required to watch endless debates on public TV; however, there would always be these weird divisions in the class anyway. Especially on issues of race (even though his school had virtually no diversity whatsoever) and gay rights.

He was old enough now that he knew it was weird that he didn’t want to date. He knew that most of the kids considered him some kind of punk goth for his taste in clothes (black). He also knew that being Thor’s tall, willowy brother whose limbs were still too long when Thor already looked like he’d been in the gym for 25 years was weird too.

‘Weird’ he could accept. He probably wouldn’t be beat up just for being ‘weird.’

He flipped the page in his textbook. There was Harvey Milk smiling back at him. Images of the protests for gay rights to things as fundamental as employment and healthcare cut into the walls of text. The caption for the photo just read,  _Gay rights activist Harvey Milk in 1978. He was assassinated by Dan White on Nov. 27th a few weeks after this photo was taken._

That someone’s work for bettering the lives of those around him could end so abruptly and violently sent an uncomfortable splash of anger and fear through his guts.

He was ahead of most of the class then, because a moment later he caught some snorts and snickers from around the back. He didn’t turn to look, but felt a staticky sensation just under the hair on the back of his neck. He knew them, by their Realtree backpacks and Carhartt jackets, the same boys who crammed into jacked up trucks with gun racks and deer decals. He didn’t have to turn his head to know. He’d seen them often enough high on the bleachers at Thor’s football games.

Frozen, he stared at the page, listening as others reacted until an indignant scoff broke through. Flicking his eyes barely forward, he saw that one of the pretty girls who never talked to him twisted in her seat to glare at the disruption.

“Hey, enough,” their teacher said, tone brokering no argument. The man’s flinty gray eyes swept over the room.

The boys in the back quieted down and the pretty girl flicked her bright red hair over her shoulder, dismissing them.

Loki took a breath and forced himself to turn the page, just to absorb more tragedy. The AIDS crisis, race riots, all leading up to the war on drugs and continued violence that he knew, distantly, still affected people today. He couldn’t imagine a city as big and crowded as Los Angeles, let alone things like the war zone described in in the tight, justified text of his book.

About the time he felt like he’d sat for too long, the teacher spoke again, “Finish the chapter for discussion tomorrow.” The bell rang shortly after.

Icy dread pitched somewhere under his heart, but he slid his book into his backpack and made a beeline for the door.

The cafeteria and lunch were a noisy affair. After the first few days of school, Thor hadn’t bothered to try to eat with him much anymore and he found a corner to work through the rest of the history chapter and pick apart his sandwich. This was the first time in a while, however, that someone interrupted him.

“Hey,” said the pretty redheaded girl. For once, it didn’t feel as loaded as some of the other greetings he’d gotten. He looked up from his book, feeling the pinch around his eyes as he gave her a questioning look.

“I’m Nat, from history class?” She shifted herself to her other foot, nodding to the textbook open on the table. “Have you looked at the chapter questions yet?”

Loki moved his book over so she had a place to sit. “No,” he answered honestly. “I’d planned to check them out tonight.”

“Yeah,” Nat settled and pulled out a spiral notebook, “the discussion questions are pretty heavy.”

Loki blinked, “Civil rights are a heavy topic.”

“Of course,” breezed Nat, flipping through her notes, “what I think will be understated tomorrow is how interconnected a lot of events were. Like Harvey Milk’s assassination happened the same year, about the same time, as other elections were taking place around the US.” The page she stopped on had a timeline webbed with bubbles filled in with her compact handwriting. “I don’t want to spend all class tomorrow debating the civil liberties of the LGBT community, do you?”

She leveled an even look over her shoulder, pinning him still. He could feel the weight of her words, something like an undercurrent between the lines. He felt his eyes widen a little too much, a little too tellingly. She just set her mouth firmly, giving him a tiny nod and let it pass. “I’ve got some ideas about how to...redirect the discussion.”

Loki looked between her face, impassive and closed off as any locked door, and the web scrawled on the page. He nodded back. “I’m listening.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nothing against Realtree or Carhartt (okay, *a little* against realtree). Owning a bunch of those brands doesn't make you the independent survivalist a lot of people think it does though.
> 
> Also, having incredibly detailed flashbacks to my own high school days through this. I won't bore you with the details, but damn. Being a queer teenager sucks.


	3. The Devil Wears A Suit and Tie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *Warnings for suicide ideation, alcoholism, off-screen/referenced domestic violence, and adolescents with symptoms of chronic trauma.* I'm pulling from comic canon here regarding various origin stories and please keep in mind that our heroes witnessed some awful violence as kids on their heroes' journeys. Calling it "canon-typical violence" doesn't quite cover it, imo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _Well, reverend, reverend please come quick_  
>  _'Cause I've got something to admit_  
>  _I met a man out in the sticks_  
>  _Of Good Ole Miss_  
>  _He drove a series 10 Cadillac and wore a cigar on his lip_  
>   
>  _Don't you know the devil wears a suit and tie_  
>  _Saw him driving down the 61 in early July_  
>  _White as a cotton field and sharp as a knife_  
>  _I heard him howling as he passed me by_  
>  -Colter Wall from album Imaginary Appalachia, [Listen Here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqR1cjuPXUg)

If he’s being honest, today wasn’t the first day he’d considered suicide. The realization wasn’t as alarming as it probably should have been. The liquor cabinet was firmly in place behind his father’s enormous wooden desk, where his father was firmly in place perusing documents from work. Sooner or later, Howard would head either back to the office onsite or off to pick a fight with Maria, and Tony could pick the lock and water down some whiskey so he could sleep. The impossibly long day he had on his academic schedule tomorrow warranted swift and easy rest, or so he told himself.

The private boys’ school he endured day to day was the bane of his existence. The fancy little uniforms alone were enough to gag a maggot, and the way the other boys looked at him drove the final nail in the coffin: Tony hated it. It was made all the worse by his age since he skipped several grades, and now he was the shortest boy in high school.

Whenever he complained though, Howard would growl at him that he could go work in the coal mines he managed.

So he traded complaining for stealing from the liquor cabinet.

Maria, ever the picture of poise and grace, was far too busy being Howard’s arm candy to notice that her adolescent son inexplicably smelled like whiskey more and more. Howard, on the other hand, would eventually notice how much paler his single malts looked after Tony replaced it with water.

Howard shuffled his papers and Tony prayed he’d be leaving soon.

* * *

Bruce walked home from the library as slowly as possible. He didn’t know what he would find when he got home, but the probability of his father being either intoxicated or well on his way was too high and he’d rather be anywhere but there. If he dragged too long though, there’d be consequences too. There was some elusive amount of time, never known to him, that he was supposed to take. He figured he’d never know.

One of the ladies from the church offered to let him use her small library of books she collected through the years, but they were wildly outdated and he couldn’t use something that old for his research paper. All he had was the library at the community college on the other side of town. Walking there instead of taking the bus kept his fare in his pocket and delayed the inevitable.

He stepped off the pavement and listened to to the crunch of gravel under his feet. His sneakers turned dusty and reddish in the iron-rich dried clay. At the rate he grew, he’d need a new pair soon.

He counted the houses and trailers lining the dirt road. Most folks had little decorations in their yards like bird baths or some saccharine sentiment in brush script over stars, eagles, or crosses. One place down farther had tricycles and little toys strewn over the yard and the porch, the neon colors catching the sunset in spite of the fading light.

Finally he let himself see the state of their yard and tried to get a feel for whatever situation might be waiting for him inside. One single window, a painfully bright yellow square, illuminated their meticulous yard. His father spent a lot of time cultivating the lawn when he was sober enough to find it.

Bright and shiny only on the outside, like the rest of his life.

Bruce tiptoed in, careful not to let the storm door slam. His father sat at their kitchen table under the overhead light, the shadows on his face and the stillness settled around him strange enough to set Bruce’s hair on end.

His father’s bleary eyes met his as he kicked off his dusty shoes and tucked them out of sight. “Your mother’s gone.”

Bruce froze. The inflection didn’t imply that she just ran to the store. “Gone?”

His father glared at him, “Didn’t you hear me, boy? She’s gone. She’s not coming back.”

Every alarm in his head started a terrible klaxon, but his body refused to move while pinned under his father’s bloodshot stare.

“Get out of my sight,” his father growled. Bruce recovered enough to retreat to his tiny room, grabbing his backpack and breathing hard. A thousand questions warred for his attention, but all he could do was lean his back to the door and listen for any signals that his father might be coming after him.

His heart rate normalized, though he could still feel it burning in his ears. He stared at the back of his door and the seam of yellow light under it, listening hard for stomping tread coming his way. The house was silent. The light stayed on. Bruce kept his off in case the shadows started moving underneath the door.

Eventually, he sat down on his twin bed but he didn’t remember doing it. Distantly he understood that his body and mind were in a state of shock, but somewhere in the white noise and alarm bells was a shell of hurt and anger. He knew that it would soon engulf him, along with hundred of questions. Was she really gone? Was his father lying? Why didn’t she take him with her? Where did she go?

What was going to happen now?

In a secret part of his heart, he had been counting down to his 18th birthday but he didn’t really know why. He knew he could escape then, but to what purpose? Where would he go? Could he find his mom after that?

What if she didn’t just escape her husband, what if she left him on purpose too?

With a pang, Bruce realized he left his only pair of shoes by the door. _Idiot!_ His mind hissed. Now if he needed to run, he’d be barefoot.

Unable to answer any of the questions racing through his mind, he simply melted on his side in defeat. Eyes on the strip of light, he curled around his ratty backpack and hugged the awkward edges of his books through the threadbare canvas. Whatever the situation in the kitchen, maybe things would be better in the morning.

Every cell in his body knew that was a lie.

* * *

Alone at the peak, Clint looked at the expansive horizon. He’d spent the day on the trails, listening to the crunch of his own footfalls in the pressing silence of the woods. Squirrels clattered through leaves only to disappear in the foliage. Birds twittered and squawked as they flew south overhead and the view was beautiful.

His brother would have liked it.

Pushing the thought aside, Clint pulled out his short, sharp knife and picked up the branch he found. Absently chewing on his lip, he sat on the rocky ledge and whittled the branch into a decent point. He pulled out the turkey feathers and tried to cut them right, but they were pretty bedraggled even in his opinion. Nonetheless, he got them lined up to the gouges he sliced into the branch and got the notch placed about right in the back.

He pulled out the springy bow he’d fashioned out of another branch. Somewhere he’d read about how the Native Americans had made their bows and arrows and he knew that’d be the closest thing to a weapon he could get his hands on. He knew what to do with the young sapling he found and so far it retained its elasticity. He didn’t have any cured deer tendons to string it with, so he made do: nylons and pantyhose snitched from laundry lines and corner markets. It looked ridiculous, but a sharp enough point could pop a balloon.

One day he’d have a good hunting rifle, the kind he remembered his father had, but he didn’t have the money to blow on one. Either way, he figured his makeshift archery would build strength in his arms and steady his hands while he learned to fire from a distance.

He looked around for a target. The mountain top offered a few scraggly plants and an over abundance of dry, crunchy leaves. A tree a few feet away had a single bright red leaf still hanging on.

Setting his jaw, Clint stood and drew his bow, notching in his shitty arrow and sighting along it at the fluttering leaf. He took a deep breath, held it until the breeze settled, and released the string. The leaf fluttered to the forest floor, severed at the stem.

Glowing, Clint scurried to it and twisted it between his fingers: definitive proof that he was getting the hang of it at last. For luck, he carefully flattened the leaf and put it in his side bag for safe keeping. Looking around among the piled leaves though, he frowned. His arrow had disappeared.

**Author's Note:**

> Appalachian native who, after a couple of drinks with friends, bounced this idea off of fellow MCU nerds. The "tropes" of who we knew growing up and who would fit the bill snowballed from there. This originally began as a hilarious conversation at the bar, but it went somewhere darker. If you're a part of the LGBTQIA+ community and feeling stuck in Appalachia, a good place for support is the Facebook group Queer Appalachia [https://www.facebook.com/QueersnAppalachia/]. Come talk cornbread and possums with us.


End file.
